Messages

16

General Discussion / Re: Sober alternatives for PSI events

« on: March 31, 2011, 01:28:16 PM »

While respecting what that second "A" stands for, I'll say that at the 2008 NPS in Madison, I woke up early and got breakfast, and I was surprised to see a NorthBEAST poet up and about at that hour. When I asked him what he was up to, he said he'd been at a meeting. I <foot ="mouth"> asked him why on Earth the team had a meeting at 7AM </foot>. He replied that it was an AA meeting.

Man found an AA meeting in an unfamiliar city at 7AM on a Friday. That's some skills.

Here's a meeting locator for Boston/Cambridge. Kendall, Central, and Porter Squares are all EASILY accessible on the Red Line T (subway) from the hotel and venues.

I realize that most people in recovery know how to find AA meetings, and I also realize that "attending an AA meeting" is not a sober social alternative to "attending a PSI event." But perhaps someone in the know could put together a listing of community resources (links, a QRC tag, flier, Web page) as a start?

17

General Discussion / Re: looking for the 2009 NPS commercial

« on: March 08, 2011, 12:49:28 PM »

If no one has gotten back to you, there are like 50 Emerson film students who could shoot a new commercial at Cantab and Lizard, probably picking up class credit in the process?

18

General Discussion / Re: Any poetry venues or competitions in California? Any upcoming competitions?

« on: February 24, 2011, 04:42:00 PM »

Hey Ransacked - are you still in the Bay?

I sure am! You schooled me in the slam last night at the Starry Plough. Congratulations! I'd have said hello but I barely made it to the BART station on time as it was. Berkeley is a bit of a haul for me.

I don't write or perform much these days, though. Since I moved out here, most of my time has gone toward looking for a job, catching up with some college buddies, and rebuilding my Website. Once I get myself settled I'll probably take up poetry again. Anyway, since I'm new to the Bay Area myself, I'm no authority on the local scenes, let alone all the scenes in California. My point was that when it comes to seeking out an open mic, slam or otherwise, most newcomers won't have the right instincts. Facebook searches and face-to-face mingling are the ways to go.

Mike McGee, David Perez, and Tatyana Brown host an AMAZING variety show and poetry slam six times per year in San Jose. Go to Mike McGee Town to learn more.

LOVE these guys... but it's odd this the one show you specifically point to?? Berkeley happens each and every wednesday (again, in the same spot for  for the last 11 years), Tourettes gets 400+ folks out monthly (for a decade + now)... MoFo is once every two months with no set date for the next show??

I mentioned this show because San Jose is kinda/loosely in the "middle" of this admittedly gigantic state. Mike and I have been friends for a few years and I happen to love the offbeat format of this show (plastic green soldiers, door prizes, hosts getting haircuts on stage based on applause, tickle fights, jugglers, shenanigans). I also think it's a very good "gateway" show for people who aren't familiar with this whole slam poetry thing. Would I, personally, schedule/host/market a show the way they do? Nope. But they have a line wrapped around the block every time they put on this show, so I'm not going to tell them they're doing it wrong.

I'll be sure to say hello when I come over to Oakland for your shows!

19

General Discussion / Re: Any poetry venues or competitions in California? Any upcoming competitions?

« on: February 23, 2011, 06:34:09 PM »

Please let me know if there are any upcoming competitions or venues in California
Thanks!

There are lots of readings. They can be pretty hard to find, though. I've lived in San Francisco for six months, and I've wasted a lot of time and cabfare heading to phantom events. One of the downsides to Facebook is that a lot of slams and readings that used to have Websites have now migrated to Facebook pages, and thus disappeared beyond the reach of Google/Yahoo/etc.

My advice is to get on Facebook and start searching/friending/fanning different poetry slams. Look for colleges/universities in your area and see if the Student Activities people and/or the English department host regular readings.

I am aware of no California poetry open mics or slams which continue to update their MySpace pages. The information on them is often years out of date, so steer clear.

PSI has a map of slams, but it's up to the different slammasters to keep it up-to-date, and there are plenty of great poetry readings which are not PSI-registered slams, so again I'd refer to you Facebook.

Mike McGee, David Perez, and Tatyana Brown host an AMAZING variety show and poetry slam six times per year in San Jose. Go to Mike McGee Town to learn more.

When you go to a reading (any kind of reading) make sure to mingle and network, because other poets are often your best source of knowledge about local slams in your community.

20

General Discussion / Re: Membership Retention

« on: September 01, 2010, 10:44:02 AM »

That said, for me, membership is less about what money it generates for PSi than it does with enabling us to spread and grow Slam.  We get that you want more from your memberships.  So do we.  So let's talk about what might make it more valuable to you and your scenes and not just why you're waning.  I don't know that we'll make a dozen changes, but a few changes would go a long way in my book.

1. The slam workshops at Oneonta held promise. I could never attend because my job's busiest season is the summer, but if something similar to that had been offered at some other time of year, I'd have enjoyed going.

2. There is no Air Traffic Control for all the touring poets. PSI could be a clearinghouse for that.
   A. Scheduling: Right now, touring poets are looking for venues and venues are looking for touring poets. A great lineup happens one state away and fans might not get the word in time. A cancellation on short notice means a venue has to scramble for a feature, unaware that a really great touring poet will be in the area that week. We clog up Facebook and MySpace with poorly targeted self-promotion that bothers the friends and fans who live hundreds of miles away from the upcoming shows we're plugging.
   B. Logistics: Poet A lives on the East Coast. Owns a car. Is going to fly out to the Midwest and tour this fall, racking up $200 in car rental fees. Poet B lives in the Midwest. Owns a car. Is going to fly out to the East Coast and tour this fall, racking up $300 in car rental fees. If they knew about each other in advance, they could swap cars. Or apartments.

21

General Discussion / Re: Membership Retention

« on: August 31, 2010, 09:10:02 PM »

PSi doesn't do a whole lot for me, and my membership in PSi doesn't do a whole lot for me, either, but PSi does a lot for the art form/ art movement I support, and you all seem like nice people, and $35/yr is a modest donation to the cause of good writing and good fellowship.

I joined in 2007 (2006?) back when I wanted to be a slam poet. Membership gave me a cute card (which I soon lost) and permitted me to enter upper-level slam tournaments at the Cantab. It was a means to a very specific, practical end.

By 2008, I'd realized that I had more to offer as a booster and backstage guy than as a competitor, but I paid the modest renewal fee because I didn't want PSI to delete my account and I did want a discount on a hotel room @ NPS Madison.

In 2009, I renewed at the associate level so I could sell my book in the PSi store. I forget whether it got me a discount admission to IWPS Berkeley.

Now it's 2010, and I'm about to renew my membership because I'm pretty sure i'm overdue for renewal, but I haven't gotten any reminders and, obviously, I can post comments and see "members only" parts of the forum. The book isn't selling (here), and the ways I participate in the slam community don't require my continued membership to PSI, but as I said at the start, it's just $35/year, PSI is Good People, and it's for a good cause.

I suspect the rank-and-file members of a given slam/open mic community have no idea what PSi is. It's like asking college students about the board of trustees, or the you-gotta-be-kidding letters that invite me to annual shareholder meetings of my meager stock portfolio. The work PSI does is always important but rarely visible. The Boston Poetry Slam has a dozen staff members and only three of us (Simone, Dawn, and I) post on these forums with any frequency. Our community is intensely loyal to the Cantab, and has a good spirit about the NorthBEAST slam family, but PSi just isn't on our community radar.

I suspect PSI will be a much bigger part of the Boston consciousness as NPS 2011 nears.

22

General Discussion / Re: Limerick Slam at NPS

« on: August 09, 2010, 11:30:14 PM »

Flo Diva won it in a final head-to-head showdown against Cynthia French.  The limericks used are not appropriate for reposting here.

Sigh. I'm so glad this happened.

23

General Discussion / Re: Poet Fantasy Football time

« on: August 09, 2010, 11:27:06 PM »

See, and I was certain that we were going to draft teams of poets for next year's NPS and nerdgasm off this mortal coil.

24

General Discussion / Re: Limerick Slam at NPS

« on: August 06, 2010, 01:57:14 PM »

How did it go? Who won? Yay Limericks!

I was so bummed when my post-ticker promoted me to "sonnet." I'd have stayed "limerick" forever if I could. (Cue Neil Young's "Sugar Mountain" song.)

25

General Discussion / Re: Passive Touring?

« on: June 07, 2010, 11:20:58 AM »

Hey Inkera:

Charlotte would love to have you come through. If you come the 3rd week of the month we do a weekend of poetry.

Is "third week of the month" Sept. 12-18? I ask because Sept. 2010 starts on a Wednesday, so I'm not sure if you count that as the first week. Right now I'm seeing an amazing airfare deal ($125 round trip!) if I go Thursday 9/16 and return Sunday 9/19, but I want to be sure I can catch the slam and attend the workshop.

I'm already looking forward to this. Thanks!

26

General Discussion / Re: Poet looking for a slam team

« on: May 26, 2010, 03:54:34 PM »

So just lurk around open mics when I have the time and propose a grouping to individuals along the road?
   

Actually, yeah. I think that's exactly what you want to do, if you can shake off any work/school obligations for a few weeks and listen with a good ear for talent. Find the voices that you respect and see if they'll join you in whatever you've got planned. I'm hoping to wander the country this fall, and a big part of that is my faith in the idea that there are voices out there I need to hear, collaborators I haven't met yet.

If you don't want to slam competitively, don't. Poetry still has room for you. My initial enchantment with poetry slams wore off eventually, and I realized I wasn't cut out for an NPS-style team. But there are a couple of voices in my venue I work very well with, and we've done some great local shows together. "Team" can mean a lot of things.

There are thousands of performance poets out there. Most of the people on this forum participate in slams, so that's why when we read that you are looking for a "team" we think "a team of registered PSI poets who can go compete at the National Poetry Slam." But if you mean "team" more like "troupe" or "band" or "retinue," then that's also completely legit.

Look up Solomon Sparrow's Electric Whale Revival (no, really, that's what they called it) for an example of a poetry "team" that wasn't trying to compete. Boston used to have "Dr. Brown's Traveling Poetry Show" and that was before my time, but it was a non-competitive "team" I think.

27

General Discussion / Re: Passive Touring?

« on: May 25, 2010, 07:08:41 AM »

Wow. Thanks, Inkera! Sounds as if I could roll into town on a Tuesday and practically be a "regular" by the time I rolled out Sunday morning! That's exactly the kind of scene I'd like to explore.

by way of reciprocity: Here in Boston, during the school year, one could show up on Sunday and see the Lizard Lounge slam, go to the Emerson College Slam/open mic on Monday, take the train down to Providence on Tuesday for Got Poetry Live (feature and open mic) and then back to Boston/Cambridge for the Cantab open mic/slam on Wednesday.

28

General Discussion / Re: NPS 2010 Beard Growing Contest

« on: May 24, 2010, 06:03:02 PM »

I think this kind of constructive competition could really help a lot of us grow...beards. But I've seen Harlym_125 go from Norelco spokesman to this guy between slam rounds through sheer force of will. A beard-growing contest with Harlym_125 is a battle for second place, is all I'm sayin. I don't want anyone to sprain his/her face on a fool's errand.

29

General Discussion / Passive Touring?

« on: May 24, 2010, 05:33:12 PM »

Every so often I'll notice one or two "slam luminaries" in my home venue, not featuring or anything, just soaking it all in. Maybe they've come to see the feature, maybe they had hoped to feature but the scheduling didn't work out, or maybe they came to listen and learn. I don't know how many have come expressly to listen, but I like that idea.

I'm not a slam luminary, but I'd like to go on a listening tour this fall. I'm thinking two weeks, six to eight cities, suitcase, railpass, that sort of thing. Wind up someplace far and fly back to Boston...or maybe just stay put someplace far and see how that goes.

Mike McGee and others have written extensively, and well, on how to tour as a "touring poet," but not all of that advice seems relevant to the kind of passive touring I have in mind. For example, I'd have no scheduling pressure: if I missed the train to Springfield, I might miss the Springfield reading, but the Springfield reading wouldn't miss me. On the other hand, I'd be unable/unwilling to avail myself of the Touring Poet Hospitality Network, since I wouldn't be singing for my supper.

Have any of you done this kind of tour before? What did you learn?

What are the must-see venues, slam or otherwise? I'd like to visit a blend of national powerhouses and "best-kept secrets."

While any road trip is a test of serendipity, I'd prefer to help serendipity out by focusing on reliable, established readings where a guy from out-of-town can be reasonably sure of getting a seat.

Anybody know of back-to-back kind of events, where I could attend (for example) a workshop one day and an open mic the next day? Spending multiple days in one town would let me do some touristy stuff...and possibly some laundry.

Thanks in advance for any links or suggestions.

30

General Discussion / Re: PSI is on Facebook!

« on: May 07, 2010, 02:46:37 PM »

Hi Abigail:

1. Congratulations on your son!

2. Do you have a sense of how people will use the Facebook site vs. how they will use this PSI Website? Will the two sites share content/features/demographics? Do you see the Facebook site eventually replacing this one? Is it too soon to tell?

Poetry Slam, Inc. has made the move to Facebook! We're still urging people to come to the forums on this website and get engaged in discussions here, but we've decided it's time to enter the world of pokes, notes, wall posts and updates. Search for Poetry Slam, Inc. and you will find an area where you can post questions, find out information about NPS and see how much fun this poetry stuff actually is.